Page 5 of Too Safe

I glance over at the girl again—Hunter—and eye her outstretched arm.

“Joey,” I supply with a cool smile as I shake her hand.

“Joey?”

“It’s short for Josephine,” I clarify, batting down the panic clawing its way out of my chest.

Joey. Josephine. Jo. It doesn’t matter what I call myself. None of it fits.

Hunter smiles like the Cheshire cat. “Now I understand why Crusade had his gilded underwear in a bunch in the parking lot this morning.”

“Crusade?”

Hunter’s perfectly arched eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “Decker Crusade? The leader of the four-man welcome committee who greeted you the second you pulled in?”

Crusade. As in the Crusade Scholarship? The one covering my tuition for the next four years? Good grief.

“You saw that, huh?”

“Everyone saw it, girl. Decker and his boys were probably the first people on campus this morning, just waiting for you. But now it makes sense.”

“Not to me,” I mutter.

“You go by Joey?”

“Yes.”

Hunter grins, using her toes to spin her chair one way, then the other with so much giddiness I’m surprised she’s not clapping excitedly like a little kid.

“I guarantee Decker thought you were a guy.”

Obsidian black eyes and the prettiest scowl come to mind, along with the first words he uttered. “You’re a girl.”

“That tracks,” I confirm. “But why would he care?”

Hunter rolls her eyes and snickers. “Because he’s Decker Crusade. QB1. The big man on campus, and a control freak to boot.” She purses her lips and gives me a quick once-over. “I assume you’re the recipient of the Crusade Scholarship?”

“Yeah, but…” I frown.

Hunter scoots her chair a little closer and leans in. “Crusade always makes a big deal about welcoming the scholarship recipient to campus. If all he had to go on was that your name isJoey, I’m sure he was expecting a guy.”

Huh. I guess I assumed the scholarship was named after a dead person, not the quarterback of the football team.

“Are you a freshman?” I ask, more than ready to divert the attention away from myself.

Hunter plays with the jewel-encrustedHcharm on the end of her necklace. “Technically, yes. I grew up in Lake Chapel. Graduated with Decker and the guys. They’re all seniors this year, but I tried to take a gap year after high school.”

“Tried?”

She grimaces. “It sort of turned into a never-ending adventure. I’m still questioning why I left Lake Como for this,” she admits. “Now I’m the only twenty-one-year-old freshman on campus.”

I scoff. “You’re not the only one, actually.”

“Seriously?” Her eyes widen.

“According to the admissions office, I’m a nontraditional student because of my age and circumstances.”

Hunter leans forward, wearing a bright smile. “Nontraditional? That sounds like a fancy word to distinguish that you aren’t from around here,” she hedges.

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